Julene Tripp Weaver

I Don’t Want to Write a Poem About Costco 

or retail merchandise
or young girls who escape pregnancy
until they turn 20. 

But, she worked in a woman’s clothing store
grew to hate how the women
tried on designer clothes, but never bought a thing,
they made a mess for her to clean up,
folding and refolding. 
So she moved to the men’s department
used her smile, her long blond hair,
asked them what they needed.
She handed them the perfect fit,
they bought exactly
what they came in for
and more. 

She suggested items to accentuate,
a belt or a tie, they appreciated
her interest.
It was much easier,
she even found a husband.
She thought she this was her escape,
till she hit fifty, endangered
like the rest of us.

Julene Tripp Weaver lives in Seattle and works in an AIDS Service Organization; this second career is the basis for her chapbook Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues. Her poems are published in many journals including Main Street Rag, The Healing Muse, Knock, Off the Coast, Pontoon, Arabesques Review, Nerve Cowboy, Arnazella, Crab Creek Review, Pilgrimage, Pirene's Fountain, and Letters to the World Poems from the Wom-Po LISTSERV.